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Star Trek

Star Trek: Leonard Nimoy and Zachary Quinto

There was a lot of pressure on the 2009 reboot of Star Trek, with rabid Trekkies on one end ready to pounce at any transgression over the franchise's folklore, and nerd-bashers on the other simply ready to dismiss the film as a boring pit stop in dorkville. But director J.J. Abrams pulled things off handily, thanks in no small part to the work of Zachary Quinto as a young Spock, whose half-human DNA begets him much more fiery emotion (subdued though it may be) than other Vulcans. Halfway through the film, Chris Pine's Captain Kirk stumbles across an older version of Spock (played by the original and legendary Leonard Nimoy, now 81 years old, and here credited technically as "Spock Prime"), who reveals that he accidentally time traveled due to a mysterious space lightning storm (just go with it). In a moment that will live in nerdfamy, the ending of the film has an encounter between Mr. Nimoy and Mr. Quinto, who holds his own incredibly well up against the man who taught us all to "live long and prosper."